Events

Mnemonics, Game Over

The Venice Architecture Biennale 's summer-long adventure is over. The pavilions close one by one, the exhibitions pack up and embark, set off on nomadic traveling wanderings. It all happens quietly, without excitement, as a duty. The atmosphere is so far removed from the effervescence of the moment in the mirror, of the beginning, full of promise and excitement!

Every two years, Venice belongs to architects, to visitors dressed in black. Is this a sign of the profession's recognition, or is it simply a sign of anger at the excessive use of color, which can hide a lack of content? A desire to appear effortlessly sober and interesting or simply interesting? Whatever the answer - besides, how many architects, so many answers - the sobriety of black is offset by the eccentricity of the hairstyles and the original and bold, even cheeky at times, clothing design, meant to dazzle. Atypically tailored clothes, very loose or very tight, excessive in their richness or, on the contrary, in their economy of material, with wide or tightly molded lapels, with endless pleats and pleats, out of fashion or perhaps foreshadowing the lines of a fashion to come, a mix of cultural influences that is hard to control, equally fascinating and hard to assimilate.
Because the architect, wherever he walks, eats or sleeps, practically wherever he breathes, sets himself up as a fighter against the monotony of the ordinary in any form, seeking to shape the environment, whether temporary or lasting, by whatever means he has at his disposal. As Venice is not only monotonous, the justification for this biennial show could be the city's eternal carnivalesque vocation, the disguise of identity? Why not a carnival with atypical masks, with architects masquerading as... architects?

We conclude the series of articles dedicated to the Romanian exhibition participating in this year's Venice Architecture Biennale with two texts, a short diary of impressions as a visitor and moral supporter (and not only) of Bogdan Tofan (commissioner of the Union of Romanian Architects, in charge of organizing the selection process for the team of architects who designed the pavilion - 2012, 2014, and Commissioner of the 2018 National Architecture Biennale) and a collective letter from the Mnemonics team to the public who visited the Romanian Pavilion this summer.(Maria Mănescu)